The Emperor of Ocean Park Read Online Free PDF

figure out if she is serious. I am flattered and worried at the same time. The idea of being the head of the Garlandfamily, whatever it might mean, has an odd appeal, no doubt the expression of some ancient male gene for dominance.
    “Okay, Alma.”
    She hugs me a little tighter, refusing to be mollified. “Talcott, he had plans for you. He wanted you to be the one who . . .” Alma blinks and leans away again. “Well, never mind, never mind. He’ll let you know.”
    “Who’ll let me know, Alma?”
    She chooses to answer a different question. “You have the chance to make everything right, Talcott. You can fix it.”
    “Fix what?”
    “The family.”
    I shake my head. “Alma, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You know what I mean, Talcott. Remember the good times we used to have in Oak Bluffs? You kids, your daddy and mommy, me, Uncle Derek—back when Abigail was still with us,” Alma concludes suddenly, surprising me with a small sob.
    I take her hand. “I don’t think human beings can fix things like that.”
    “Right. But your daddy will let you know what to do when the time comes.”
    “My daddy? You mean the Judge?”
    “You got some other daddy?”
    This is the other thing everybody says about Alma: she is no longer quite all there.
    Extricating myself at last, I remember that I am supposed to be looking for Sally. All the crazy Garland women, I am thinking: is it we Garland men who give them their neuroses, or is it just coincidence? I struggle through the throng. I wonder why all these people are here now, why they couldn’t wait for the wake. Maybe Mariah isn’t planning one. A couple of strangers thrust their hands at me. Somebody whispers that the Judge didn’t suffer and we should count our blessings, and I want to spin around and ask, Were you there? . . . but instead I nod and walk on, as my father would have. Somebody else, another white face, mumbles that the torch has been passed and it is all up to the children now, but neglects to define it. Just outside the kitchen, I frown at the hearty handshake of an elderly Baptist minister, high in the councils of one of the older civil rights organizations, a man who, I am pretty sure, actually testified against my father’s confirmation to the SupremeCourt. And now has the temerity to pretend to mourn with us. The handshake seems interminable, his ancient fingertips keep moving on my flesh, and I finally realize that he is trying to impart the secret hailing sign of some fraternity, not knowing, perhaps, that rejecting the overtures of such groups was one of my very few acts of rebellion against my parents’ way of life—the life, I often think, from which Kimmer, my fellow rebel, rescued me. Nor is it my pleasure to enlighten him. I simply want to escape his insincere unctuousness, and I can feel the veil of red about to return. He refuses to let go. He is talking about how close he and my father were in the past. How sorry he is about the way things turned out. I am about to respond with something rather un-Christian, when all at once a whirlwind of small bodies hurricanes past, nearly knocking us both to the floor; the five Denton children, ages four through twelve, are rushing in their leaderless headlong way to trash some other area of the house. They number Malcolm, Marshall, the twins Martin and Martina, and the baby, Marcus. Mariah, I know, is even now hunting desperately for a name for the very obvious sixth little Denton, due in late February or early March, but is at a loss to find a way to honor both our history and her pattern. This latest pregnancy is in any case a scandal, at least within the four walls of my house. A year ago, when she was forty-two, Mariah confided to my astonished wife that she wanted to bear one more child, which Kimmer denounced, to my private ear, as an irresponsible waste and self-indulgence: for Kimmer, like my father, values most those who differ from her least.
    (II)
    O URS IS an old